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DENVER, Jan. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Well known for founding healthcare payer software powerhouse, The TriZetto Group, and growing it to return $1.4 billion to shareholders in just 10 years, as well as authoring The Healthcare Cure, Jeff Margolis is now focusing on the opportunity to improve healthcare value through social networking technology.

Margolis recently became executive chairman of WellTok, Inc., developer of the social health hub network, CafeWell(TM), which is already being utilized by healthcare payers to actively engage thousands of members in improving their health. Health plan customers of WellTok have recently begun to offer expanded sponsorship onto the CafeWell channel to over 1 million members.

“Healthcare population managers, whether they are health plans or health providers, have struggled to get consumers meaningfully engaged with their health, and the nation’s health statistics and costs reflect that,” noted Margolis. “Despite having more than 80% of the U.S. population is some form of private or public ‘organized system of health care’, consumers’ knowledge and behaviors are not reflective of the ever-growing body of information available to help them optimize their health.

Social networking platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have changed the culture of information flow in communications. And research, such as the work of Dr. Nicholas Christakis at Harvard Medical School, has documented the impact of a person’s social network on their health behaviors.

“Harnessing both social power and social networking technology with security, privacy and alignment is a critical mandate for healthcare,” Margolis added. “At TriZetto, we delivered platforms to help population managers massively cut administrative costs, improve care management and accelerate connectivity among healthcare constituents. Now, social networking technology applied in a systematic way to consumers within managed populations can similarly lead to significant breakthroughs that will drive greater value for the money being spent in our healthcare system. That’s the desired outcome of Social Health Management.”

“Jeff’s vision and entrepreneurship has driven tremendous shareholder value across many companies over the past twenty years,” said Robert DiGia, global head of healthcare investment banking at UBS Investment Bank. “I expect that Jeff’s deep understanding of the healthcare ecosystem will create significant value for WellTok’ customers and investors.”

“Jeff has provided important input to Washington, D.C. stakeholders’ understanding of the impact information technology can have on healthcare,” said Ian Adler, senior managing director of healthcare at the Marwood Group. “Social network technology is a new frontier for healthcare and I look forward to Jeff’s continued leadership in developing this new technology to improve the cost and quality of care.”

Delivering Social Health Management(TM) (SHM)

It seems that everything you hear about today is ‘social’. As Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others have introduced consumers to networking and sharing information online. But how can we harness and direct that power to make a meaningful and sustainable impact on individuals’ and population health?

“I’ll tell you this, it takes a lot more than friending on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter, or blogging on a single-topic healthcare site,” added Margolis. “In CafeWell, we’ve pioneered the infrastructure of Social Health Management, which learns from both the strengths and limitations of existing social networks, while knitting together multiple social point solutions. CafeWell is a fusion engine for creating social health engagement among members.”

Social Health Management gives population managers – whether they be health plans, employers, or physician and care delivery organizations — a new channel through which they can quickly provide programs and information to consumers, in a fun, engaging, independent and safely anonymous network.

To create true SHM, social health hub networks, such as CafeWell, must create the self-sustaining social engagement among members to get people motivated to participate repeatedly. CafeWell does that through proven engagement drivers such as challenge competitions, sponsorship and aggressive merchandising, use of engaging game mechanics, meaningful rewards, mobile capabilities, and fun and useful content providers, such as veteran professional athletes.

And, what makes Social Health Management a full solution, is that it provides the activity itinerary and analytics feedback loop that allows population managers to understand engagement, activity patterns and to gauge the relative effectiveness of social health management and wellness programs they sponsor.

WellTok can even help integrate consumer activities with value-based benefit plans to drive higher levels of engagement that truly impact the cost and quality of healthcare.

About CafeWell and WellTok, Inc.

CafeWell is a social health network that makes getting better connected to your health and fitness more fun and more rewarding. CafeWell provides one stop for consumers’ health, wellness and fitness — including social networking; advice from experts, peers and veteran professional athletes; fun health challenges with family members and co-workers; and reliable health and fitness information. Through CafeWell, sponsors can offer rewards and incentives to promote activity and health improvement. Users control the degree to which their identity is shared, with complete anonymity as the default. To learn more about CafeWell, visit www.cafewell.com.

WellTok is pioneering Social Health Management(TM) (SMH), the complete social networking solution for healthcare population managers. WellTok’s SHM suite provides a complete solution for population managers, including the industry’s most engaging social health network, CaféWell, broad member and group analytics, and integration with healthcare payers and providers’ corporate systems and MLR requirements. WellTok, Inc. is headquartered in Denver, Colo.